No muthaeffin’ way! Not even if I have to rip his nose off of his face to prove it—will I ever believe that pansy-assed, blue-lipped, hair-better-than-mine freak of a vampire is my shit for brains life mate! And shit, shit, shit. I forgot to clean the damn toilet before I left.
Spencer’s thoughts slammed into Larkin’s head like a screaming freight train.
Son of a bitch, ass kissing, techno music loving bastard! I’ll be damned if I’ll spend a nanosecond with him, let alone an eternity. I’d rather roll in fresh garlic, drink a gallon of holy water, nail together my own cross and hang myself on it at sunrise, than have him for a life mate. Crap. Did I remember to water the fern?
Whoa. She was pissed. As Larkin drove nearer to the Polanskis’ funeral parlor, her thoughts became less muffled and more like he’d tuned in a radio station, losing the static.
I’ll stake him through the heart myself. I swear it on all things vampire. I’ll fucking embalm him. Yep, that’s exactly what I’ll do. Hey, Joffrey, how’d ya like an embalming fluid enema? Speaking of fluid, I didn’t pay the water bill…
Joffrey? Wasn’t that the snotty prick he’d met the other night at the Hole? Larkin tapped his finger on the steering wheel as he listened.
It just figures my life mate would frequent a place called the Hole. It’s what he crawled out of—the freak. And where the hell did I put the freakin’ latex gloves?
Yep. That was him. What the hell was going on? Larkin parked his car in the back and sat to listen to what Spencer was thinking. He knew he shouldn’t, but it wasn’t like he could help it.
Just because he can smell me and I can’t smell him means we have to call my girlfriends and ask them how they feel about the color lavender as a bridesmaid’s dress? I think not, motherfucker. I might not be able to smell, but if this shithead is my life mate I’ll drink embalming fluid. Damn…Soap. I forgot the flippin’ soap.
He could just picture the cute sway of her ass as she stomped around, cursing this guy Joffrey. Her petite, tightly packed body was curvy. He had plenty to grab hold of while he drove himself into her with a mindless frenzy he’d never before experienced.
If this is my life mate, then I’d rather be dead, which of course is impossible. He’s no Goddamned life mate of mine.
Life mate? Who the fuck did this asshole think he was? He’d better stay the hell away from Spencer—or he’d kill Joffrey of the lily white skin.
Shit. Now where had that very possessive thought come from?
Yoo hoo. Down here.
Larkin shifted in the seat and looked at his crotch. Yeah, yeah. His stiff cock was where that had come from. No one set him on fire like this woman did. No one and he’d be damned if he’d let some freak like Joffrey—vampire or not—have Spencer.
A vampire.
Spencer was a vampire. It was the most messed up crazy he’d ever heard. But he instinctively knew she wasn’t lying. A virgin vampire—freakier still. He’d felt like a pig last night until his ego had taken over and he thought about how she’d chosen him after a string of sexless centuries.
She claimed it was different for vampires and he’d have to take her word for it because really, what the hell did he know about vampires but what he’d seen on TV?
Larkin wanted to be freaked out by this information, but he wasn’t. Somehow it just made sense. It was almost ironic that he could read her mind and she couldn’t read his—or smell him. It gave him an advantage he wasn’t sure was good, but right now it wasn’t bad, because her thoughts of him were as carnal as his thoughts of her.
Joffrey, what kind of a name is that anyway? Sissy name for a sissy vampire.
Larkin chuckled. Yeah, it was kind of a sissy name.
How could Alan have been friends with a man like Larkin and a man like Joffrey?
He nodded his head. Yeah, how was that and why couldn’t he get any information about this guy Joffrey anywhere? It was like he didn’t exist, but he’d supposedly known Alan.
Spencer’s thoughts became more frantic in his head, running at a rapid speed as she mumbled in her mind.
Oh, God. Poor Alan being hacked up by those stupid coroners. I hope they don’t see those bites. Shit, shit, shit.
Larkin suddenly sat at attention. Bites? Shit indeed.
He grabbed the handle of his car door and shoved it open. His little mistress of the dark had some explaining to do.
* * * *
“Hey, Twilight. What up?” a voice whispered in Spencer’s ear, scaring the crap out of her and making her drop her tools.
Whipping around, she fell into the very broad chest of her favorite pesky detective. How the hell did he get in here anyway?
“I’m a cop. We have ways,” he assured her with a wink.
Spencer rolled her eyes at him and fought for calm. His close proximity had a way of stealing it from her in huge helpings. “So, what’s on tap for tonight, Detective? Are we still hunting vampires? Or have we moved onto other more exciting things, like ghosts or witches?”
Larkin tipped her chin up and pecked her nose lightly. “Nope, tonight I want to talk about vampire things. What’s it like to be a vampire, Spencer?”
“Is this like the getting to know you chapter of our relationship? Because you’ve failed dismally at the wining and dining stage of things.”
Larkin chuckled and grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the outer entrance to the embalming room. He hooked his foot around a swivel chair and plopped down in it, taking her with him.
Spencer sat stiffly on his lap.
“Okay, so I’ll make it up to you and take you out. Can we buy blood in a six-pack at the local Quickie Mart?”
Spencer crossed her arms over her breasts and then she crossed her eyes at him. “The blood thing is freaking you out, isn’t it, manly man?”
He grinned sheepishly. “Um, yeah.”
Spencer sighed and wondered how her cousin Cathy had dealt with her husband Joel and this whole blood explanation. “It’s not a big deal. Blood keeps us undead is all, like food keeps you in the land of the living and if you have a life mate you feed off of one another. We don’t kill people for it or animals or anything else. It kinda comes to us if you know what I mean.” Spencer pointed a thumb at the embalming room with a knowing look.
“So, what happens if dead bodies don’t show up here needing embalming? No deaths for a week or so. Then what?”
Spencer smiled. “We have a supply of it. I need it to live, but I can have other things too. I just can’t taste them because I can’t smell.” Spencer stuck her tongue out and ran her finger over it. “No taste buds.”
“That totally sucks. You can’t enjoy a good steak or a beer?” he asked, frowning at her as his hands rubbed her back.
“Well, I couldn’t anyway because I have no sense of smell. So I’m not missing much anyhow.”
“But blood?” He sounded repulsed.
Spencer shrugged her shoulders and arched into the motion of his hands against her back, which ached a bit from standing all night. “Yep, blood.”
“So what’s the point of having those pearly white incisors?” Larkin asked as he eyeballed her mouth.
Spencer grinned. “To protect myself from letches like you, of course.”
Larkin’s gaze became more serious and his hands stopped caressing her back.
“You wanna see ’em, don’t you?”
He nodded.
She sighed. “Men. You’re all such children at heart. Okay, but no passing out, all right? I mean, it wasn’t very detective-like. I could have bitten you and then you’d be just like me.”
“Show me.”
Spencer opened her mouth and let her incisors lengthen.
Larkin hissed out a breath before saying, “Friggin’ cool…”
She snapped her mouth shut. “Yes, Larkin, way cool.”
“So why did they pop out last night after—well, after—”
“You snatched my virginity?”
Now Larkin sighed. “I said I was sorry. I never would have suspected that a woman your age—”
Putting her hand over his mouth, she smiled. “I’m kidding. Stop it already. During lovemaking it’s common for vampires to ‘feed’ from one another. It’s sort of like foreplay to you humans.”
“Jesus. Does it hurt?”
Poking him in the chest she scoffed, “I told you, I have no idea. I was a virgin.”
“Right. Sorry. Okay, so if you don’t bite people do you wanna explain to me how Alan was bitten? Because you’re the only vampire I know who can help me.”
Spencer froze—the shit had been listening to her thoughts again! “God dammit, Larkin, get the hell out of my head, would you?” she yelled into the silence of the parlor.
Grabbing her shoulders, he forced her to look at him. “Don’t call me names—not even mentally, Polanski, and it’s not as if I can help this, you know. I didn’t ask to read your thoughts. It just happened and there isn’t any sense to it all, but it is. So adjust and gimme the skinny or I’ll stalk your pretty ass from here to kingdom come.”
She snorted at him, staring down into his handsome face. “Like you haven’t already?”
“I want to know what happened to Alan, Spencer. He was my best friend. You know something no one else does so spit it out.”
“Or what?”
“Spencer…”
Spencer schmencer. She really didn’t have any other choice, did she? And he had been Alan’s best friend. He deserved to know the truth—even if it meant her clan was stewed. The truth was as important to her as keeping her clan safe, but they weren’t safe if one of her own was biting innocents.
In a way, it might be a relief to just get this weight off her chest. Spencer let her head fall back on her shoulders as she prepared to share what she knew about Alan and even Brian.
“Okay, so when Alan’s body was sent here he’d been on ice. I saw nothing unusual about it other than he’d killed himself and he was so damn young. It made me sad…Anyway, it was after the viewing—the next day. I knew the coroner’s office was going to take Alan’s body back and it pissed me off that he’d have to be—well—”
“Cut again,” Larkin confirmed.
Spencer ran her hands over her legs in nervous patterns. “Yes, cut again. It just seemed so unnecessary. So I was sort of straightening the pillow under his head when I saw the bites. They’re really small and not the usual variety or at least not like what Joel had when Cathy bit him.”
Larkin jerked back and looked at her in confusion. “Your cousin?”
She nodded, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Yeah, Joel was a human.”
“But you just told me you don’t bite other people.”
“Not unless they want to be bitten…”
“He wanted to be bitten? What the hell is that?”
“Yes, Detective, he wanted to be bitten. He fell in love and decided leaving Cathy behind—because obviously she’d outlive him—was something he didn’t want to do. So he asked and she complied. We don’t just bite anybody, Larkin, and I’m sick to death of the population at large having this stupid notion that we want to rule the world by turning everyone into one of us. Some humans would make shitty vampires.” Her voice was growing louder and more irritated by the second, so she clamped it shut.
Larkin put both of his hands in the air as white flags. “Okay. I’m sorry. It just seemed—” He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what it seemed like. Finish the story.”
“The bites on Alan’s neck were very small compared to those that Joel had. His were like hickeys we teased him unmercifully over. Maybe it was a more bite-skilled vamp that bit Alan? I don’t know and I don’t know why anyone would bite Alan after he’d already killed himself.”
“Maybe he didn’t kill himself,” Larkin said flatly.
“Do you have any idea what it’s going to be like if someone finds out about this? The coroner’s office will eat us alive. They’ll eventually think it was us who did this. The Polanskis and I’ll be damned if I’ll let that happen.”
“Aren’t you conclusion hopping? I mean, no one knows you’re vampires.”
Spencer pushed off of Larkin’s lap and stood in front of him. “Well, they will if you have anything to say about it, Sherlock,” she said angrily. “You were the one who opened up this damn can of worms with your big shot cop routine here in Small-town-ville.”
“Do you think someone in your family would do something like this?” he asked quietly.
She lifted her chin and looked him squarely in his eyes. “No. I don’t think either. I know they wouldn’t do something like this. We don’t bite anyone but our life mates, ever.”
“And this Brian?”
Good gravy, had she thought about him too?
Larkin’s head bobbed. “Yep, you did.”
“Same thing. He has small incisor bites just like Alan’s, but he died in a car accident.”
Larkin rolled his tongue in his cheek. “Where’s Brian’s body?”
Spencer flinched. “Buried. Today.”
“His body could be evidence.”
“I know, for Christ sake, but I had a choice to make,” she yelled in defense. “Either let it go or possibly jeopardize my family over a man I can’t save anyway. How do you suppose Brian’s family is going to feel if we call them up and tell them he didn’t die in a car accident? Nah, your son was bitten by a vamp. You know, Dracula and all? That’ll go over really big, Larkin.”
Running a big hand through his hair again, Larkin nodded. “I understand, but it’s evidence that might have helped us.”
“How, Larkin? Who’s going to believe it’s vampires anyway? They’ll probably chalk it up to cult killings or something. You have no idea how often that happens without any of your human cops ever knowing about it.”
Larkin popped his lips and shook his head as he leaned back and let his long legs stretch out. “It doesn’t change the fact that someone needs to pay for this, Spencer. Someone killed Alan and I intend to find out who and why.”
“Fine. Just leave my family alone in the process,” she said between teeth clenched so hard she thought her jaw would snap.
“You know I can’t do that, Spencer. You’re a vampire and if it is in fact another vampire that killed Alan and this guy Brian, you’re going to be my vampire guide.”
Spencer’s rush of fury whaled her between the eyes just before she saw red. “Fuck—off!”
Larkin began to laugh, tipping his head back and roaring at her, which only infuriated her that much more. She had a good pissed off going on and she wasn’t letting it go. Spencer grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shook him, knowing she had an advantage because of her strength. Their eyes clashed. “I’m not your guinea vamp, McBride.”
“Nope,” he said with an eerie calm. “But you could be in danger, too. You have some scary information that might piss off whoever this is and I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
She loosened her grip on his shirt. “So I’m not a suspect, too?”
Larkin smiled smugly. “Do you suppose you could have hidden that from me?”
Right. The Amazing Kreskin all up in her head. How could she have forgotten that?